I promised myself that I wouldn’t follow the lead of just about every football podcast, radio show and TV programme I’ve consumed over the last few days by padding out this week’s column with Oasis puns. Some might say my copy is hackneyed enough (oh come on, give me one, I’m only human).
But there is another perhaps even more eagerly anticipated reunion between warring factions on the cards in Glasgow this weekend, and if you happen to be a Rangers fan, you’ve even less chance of snaffling a ticket for it than you do for Murrayfield next August.
If recent history is anything to go by, that may well be for the best.
Rangers have won just two of their last 15 matches against Celtic, no matter the venue. They have lost 10 of those games. At Celtic Park, they have gone without a win in their last nine visits, with the 2-0 triumph in October 2020 the last time they earned three points across the city.
They will go there two points behind in the league already, with pressure on their shoulders not to fall any further behind at this early stage of the season, and with none of their supporters among the 60,000 crowd. Ach well, at least it’s not at Hampden.
Even Rangers fans seem to be in a state of trepidation/outright panic ahead of the game despite the thumping win over Ross County last weekend, and looking at the match from a neutral standpoint, it is hard to make any sort of case for the visitors.
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But Rangers do have a chance. However slim it may be. The problem is, if they are to flip the narrative on Celtic, this group of players - led by their captain James Tavernier - need to show a level of fight I am not entirely sure they have within themselves.
There is a gap between the talent at the disposal of the managers, no doubt, though the close nature of the most recent matches between the sides suggests that it isn’t quite as steep as the results would indicate.
Rangers must bridge it though with good old-fashioned guts and gumption and show that they can put the fight up to Celtic, who for all their pretty patterns of play under Brendan Rodgers, have also shown they have backbone on these big occasions.
Losing is as much of a habit as winning is in football, and the Rangers fans are desperate for their side to kick their tendency to play their way into these games only to choke at the big moments.
It may come as a surprise to some of those who correspond with me regularly on social media, but I am not a Rangers supporter. Even still, when I sat and listened to Graeme Souness this week as he explained how he would have relished going to Celtic Park in these circumstances, it wasn’t exactly hard to imagine the players under his charge ‘getting the battle fever on’ back in the day before taking on their great rivals.
Philippe Clement has many qualities as a manager, but for all that I wouldn’t mess with the big man, he strikes me as the more cerebral type. His approach is likely to be more thoughtful, and it may indeed be too simplistic to say that what these Rangers players need is a spot of tub-thumping from their gaffer before they step into the Lisbon Lions’ Den.
Maybe. They can’t go flinging studs into opponent’s thighs these days ‘to let them know they’re there early on’ and escape with a stern word from the referee, after all, as you could in Souness’s day.
But while it will never be acceptable to the Rangers fans for their team to play second fiddle to Celtic, it seems as though for many of their players, and arguably some of those upstairs at the club, it has become an all-too comfortable position.
This is an opportunity – however difficult - to shift those perceptions of both themselves as individuals, and Rangers as a whole in the pecking order of Scottish football.
Win this game, and everything changes. Lose it, as seems likely, and they may well argue that all is not however lost, just weeks into the season as we are.
But what will be is any remaining hope the Rangers fans have within them of usurping the champions this season, no matter how many games are left to play, and any lingering faith they have in this squad of players.
AND ANOTHER THING…
What a draw for Celtic and their supporters in the Champions League. With all due respect, for this level, it could hardly have gone better supposing Brendan Rodgers had picked the fixtures himself.
They have some winnable home ties against the likes of Club Brugge, Young Boys and Slovan Bratislava, and a couple of belting away trips for their fans to face Borussia Dortmund and Aston Villa.
The flip side of course is that expectations will rise accordingly, but Celtic must have a fantastic chance to reach the play-off stage of the tournament in this revamped format at the very least.
Anything else would be a huge disappointment, and though signings are to arrive ahead of tonight’s deadline, the fans would lay the blame firmly at the feet of the board for their summer transfer business if they wind up 25th or lower in the 36-team league.
